FIG. 1 depicts a schematic diagram of a transport network in the prior art in which two traffic paths—one SONET OC-48 working path and one SONET OC-48 protection path—are proposed to be provisioned.
FIG. 2 depicts a flowchart of the tasks associated with provisioning those traffic paths in the prior art. At task 201, the administrator of transport network 100 provisions the working path through transport network 100, in well-known fashion.
At task 202, the administrator of transport network 100 provisions the protection path through transport network 100, also in well-known fashion.
In some cases, the administrator performs task 202 before or concurrently with task 201, but in any case, the prior art is disadvantageous in that if there is a problem provisioning either path, often the other successfully provisioned path must be de-provisioned as part of the task of finding an alternative solution for the path that was not successfully provisioned. This is inefficient, and, therefore, the need exists for a technique for efficiently provisioning multiple traffic paths in a transport network.